Toilet closure prompts advice to needy residents to sign up for Just Can’t Wait card

Suzanne Brimm advises signing up for the national card

Birchington mum and district election candidate Suzanne Brimm is urging people with medical issues that make toilet facilities an urgent essential to sign up for a national card.

The mum-of-two is highlighting the Just Can’t Wait card which, while not guaranteeing access, is nationally recognised and can help explain and avoid a potentially embarrassing situation quickly, allowing holders to use toilets in businesses and other locations.

The recommendation comes on the heels of news that the public ‘Clock Tower’ toilets in Margate are likely to remain closed throughout the Summer due to structural problems.

A review of Thanet’s public toilets is also being carried out with a suggestion of a business-led community loo scheme being mooted. The review is part of ‘efficiency saving’ plans which have also included a ‘restructure’ of coastal/tourism and operational services at Thanet council. A consultation on up to seven posts at risk, including that of Thanet Coast Project officer Tony Child, ended yesterday (April 11). The outcome will not be known until after the Easter break.

A petition urging Thanet council to retain the coast project role has been signed by more than 2,000 people. Find it here

Suzanne, who in 2016 worked for six months to get repairs done to Birchington toilets so they could be reopened, said: “The advantage of having one of these cards is that it is nationally recognised and allows holders to use the toilet facilities in shops and other locations that would not ordinary allow members of the public to use them.

“People that suffer with bladder and bowel problems including diabetes, urinary stress incontinence, prolapse, cancer, IBS and Crohn’s disease  need to use the toilet quite quickly, therefore keeping public toilets open is essentially very important and a basic necessity.

“These cards giving access could make a massive difference to people’s lives, it is so important to have access to toilets.”

The cards are free and are available from health groups including Bladder and Bowel Community.

There is also an iOS phone app available.

Facilities for people with disabilities can be used via a special ‘Radar’ key. This is given to people with disabilities through their GP or Occupational Therapist or can be bought from the Visitor Information Centre at Droit House.

Find out more here

A petition urging Thanet council to reconsider toilet closures reached more than 1,000 signatures but the format was deemed invalid for the authority to accept.

Paper petitions are available at numerous Margate seafront venues.

6 Comments

  1. Closing public toilets is ridiculous. I was in desperate need after a very bad anxiety attack a few days ago. Desperately needed a loo. I was actually in a place that didn’t have any loos,apart from a spar shop who wouldn’t let me use their toilet. I had to ask a complete stranger if I could use their toilet in their home. Luckily they let me.if I was in town or near a locked toilet it would have made my situation 100 times worse. Keep them open. It seems like councils are closing public facilities in a seaside resort which attracks outside tourism. Which is much needed to bring funds into Ramsgate. Use your brains for pity sake. Open more public facilities to make Ramsgate a better place to live.

  2. Well Suzanne how about not employing a property surveyor and 2 rouge landlord officers and an acquisitions officer and yet another IT hack, that should save us £190,000 more than enough to fix the bogs.

    Yes £190,000pa that is the cost of just 5 jobs currently advertised for TDC, OR you could get it all in one hit and just get rid of that fat bloated salary we pay the chief executive!!! and still have cash to spare.

    Get rid of the tourism officers and employ a bunch of back office idiots and close the bogs. Bright move that… NOT!!!!!!

    We dont have a council, we have a bunch of petty minded idiots so suck in by their own dogma they couldn’t see a candle in a dark room.

    I curse the lots of you with lose stools and perpetual bladder weakness for ever.

  3. Brilliant strategy TDC in making the towns as inhospitable as possible to all visitors at a time when you are professing to be working hard to rebuild a tourism economy.

  4. Perhaps if the council had not wasted money on a dog mess DNA testing scheme. Then maybe they might of had a bit of money spare. To spend on toilets.

  5. TDC have budgeted £5,000,000 on a useless Parkway Station and an even more useless Cecil Towers. How many public conveniences would that have provided for?

  6. Can someone please educate me, exactly when we’re the loos opposite the clock tower last open to the public? I am a Margate resident and if I’m on marine terrace and need the loo I have to walk along to the public loos up by the nayland rock. Ridiculous situation, get the loos fixed and give us the public services we pay for!

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